One of my all time favorite movies is Red, starring Bruce Willis, John Malcovich, Morgan Freeman, Karl Urban, Helen Mirren, and others. Just a fun movie all around. Unfortunately, it's also very much Hollywood, which means it continues the tradition of creating myths around firearms. The one I want to address this time is the myth that you can keep on spraying bullets from a standard rifle for long periods of time. It makes for great action scenes in movies, but it's a myth unless you have a very specific setup. More specifically, you can't spray bullets for extended periods of time from a standard-issue military rifle like an M4, nor from it's civilian cousin, the AR-15 as are commonly used in movies where the spraying happens.
I'll give you an example.
There's a scene toward the very beginning of this movie, where Bruce Willis' character is attacked in his home. I won't spoil anything, but there comes a point where an assault crew brings in fully automatic rifles (look like M4s plus one SAW), and for several moments, just sprays the home under attack with bullets. In fact, it's a stream of continuous fire for almost 30 seconds by my count. You don't get any long detailed shots of the rifles being used, but based on their appearance, at least 2 of them are M4s with standard 30 round magazines. The assailants are wearing standard tactical vests, which on average can easily hold 12 magazines. Now, I won't go into it in this article, but there's a huge difference between the rifles you see in this clip and rifles that look like them that you can buy at your local gun shop (in free states that is).
Take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WxZOes2Na0
Now let's take a look at reality. The M4 documented rate of fire is between 750-950 rounds per minute in full-auto mode (a mode unavailable to most Americans). That's the military rifle that many in the media equate to the semi-automatic AR-15 cousins many of us own. The two are not the same, but again, that's another article. As for the rate of fire, let's split the difference and assume the M4 is capable of 800 rounds per minute. For brevity, rate of fire represents the frequency at which a firearm can launch a projective. In laymen's terms, it can shoot 800 bullets in a minute. That's about 13 per second. The standard magazine for an M4, including the ones visible in the Red clip above, have a 30 round capacity. Drum style magazines (not observed in the movie) have a capacity of 100 rounds. That means to empty an entire standard magazine while in full auto mode would take less than 3 seconds. In fact, closer to 2 seconds. A 100 round drum (again, not used in this movie) would be emptied in about 8 seconds.
Firing continuously for 30 seconds as is shown in the movie, using standard 30 round magazines isn't possible. One would need a magazine with a capacity of about 390 rounds to accomplish that. If you used 30 round magazines and wanted to fire for 30 seconds as continuously as possible, you would need 13 magazines and 12 reloads. Now, given the tactical vests the assailants in the movie are using, it's possible they could have done that with minimal time between each reload. If you wanted to extend the firing time, you could use 4 drum magazines and 3 reloads, but they didn't do that.
In other words, what they did is not possible. So, if you believe that an AR-15 can just be used to spray bullets for minutes at a time, I hope I've corrected the record for you.
Now, the story continues it's absurdity (although fun). These assailants stop spraying the home from the outside, and decide to enter. They still haven't reloaded at this point, but even if we're to assume they did, given the standard tactical vests they appear to be wearing, they would be out of ammo when they walked into the house. Not a great idea if you are trying to take out a Bruce Willis character, but hey, it's a movie.
The only exception to this is the assailant with the SAW rifle who uses a belt to feed his machine gun it's ammunition. With a long enough belt, there's the potential that he could spray for 30 seconds, but I don't know much about that platform, so I won't comment on that.
Now, you may be thinking, "come on, it's a move, don't be so particular." I'm right there with you. I love that scene even though it's absurd. Here's the problem though. People see that scene and think it's a realistic representation of what those firearms are capable of. That's the experience they've had with a rifle like that, so when the media or politicians say things like "no one should be allowed to spray bullets from an AR-15," that's the image that may come to their mind, and they may be inclined to agree. They may see an AR-15 and think "why would someone want the ability to spray out a seemingly endless stream of bullets?" The problem is, no one can...at least not with the platform depicted in the movie that politicians will hold up in a press conference claiming they are trying to protect the public from.
It's movies like this, that while fun, fuel the miss-information out there and establish perceptions that many of us are judged against. Why would I want a firearm that can spray bullets continuously like that? I don't know, for fun I suppose. It's a civil right, so why not? But my point is, don't make those assumptions about that firearm platform or about owners of that platform. It's not real.
Thanks and be safe.
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